Rayn remained entirely paralyzed upon his throne of dark ice, his mind completely short-circuiting. The absolute, heaven-shattering revelation that the supreme sovereign, King DD, was actually his own flesh-and-blood son from a previous life echoed through his spiritual sea like a physical blow.
"Hey! Silas!" Rayn roared, his crimson eyes locking onto the naked, ethereal figure floating in the spiritual ocean. "Don't you fucking dare leave it at that! What happened to him? Tell me everything about him right now!"
Silas opened his mouth to reply, a complicated, ancient sorrow flashing across his face. But before a single syllable could leave his lips, his ethereal body violently flickered. The edges of his spiritual form began to rapidly dissolve, turning into translucent white smoke that drifted upward into the void.
"What the absolute fuck is happening to you, Silas?!" Rayn demanded, stepping off his throne.
Silas looked down at his fading hands and let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. "I already told you, you ignorant brat. I don't just exist here for free. I can only manifest and speak with you by actively siphoning your Gnosis and Qi. But your physical vessel has been completely drained by that absolute bloodbath. You have zero energy left in your core. Because you are running on fumes, my connection is being forcefully severed."
Silas's torso began to turn into smoke. "I cannot maintain this projection. Focus on not dying out there. I will talk to you again after you completely recover your profound energy."
Before Rayn could hurl another string of violent curses at him, Silas entirely dissipated into the chaotic spiritual winds. The Mind Realm violently collapsed, and Rayn's consciousness was forcefully ripped back into the physical world.
Rayn's physical eyes violently snapped open.
Instantly, absolute darkness and a crushing, suffocating weight assaulted his senses. He tried to inhale, but his mouth and lungs were immediately filled with freezing, gritty soil. Panic and pure, unfiltered rage exploded in his chest. He was completely buried underground!
Who the fuck is trying to bury me in a makeshift grave?! Rayn screamed internally.
Channeling the absolute last, dormant drops of his Conqueror power, Rayn's physical body violently convulsed. He exploded upward, shattering the heavy layer of packed dirt and frost.
BOOM!
Rayn erupted from the earth like a vengeful demon crawling out of hell, landing heavily on his feet. He violently spat out a mouthful of freezing mud, coughing and gasping for the icy cavern air.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Rayn roared, his killing intent flaring violently as he frantically wiped the heavy dirt from his glowing crimson eyes. "Who the hell is trying to bury my body in this miserable fucking gravesite?!"
As his vision finally cleared, the terrifying aura radiating from his body suddenly completely stalled.
Standing just a few feet away, holding a makeshift shovel carved from profound ice, was Vespera. Her pristine dress was entirely covered in dirt and dried blood.
Rayn was completely shocked. For a fraction of a second, confusion clouded his mind. But that confusion rapidly transmuted into absolute, blinding rage. This crazy bitch, his own contracted companion, had literally just tried to bury him alive!
Without a single word, Rayn closed the distance between them in a microsecond. He didn't summon his sword, nor did he use his Qi. He just pulled back his right arm and unleashed a brutal, unadulterated backhand directly across Vespera's delicate face.
CRACK!
The slap was so unbelievably hard that the sheer kinetic shockwave visually distorted the air. The residual sonic boom violently smashed into a massive, twenty-ton glacier boulder right beside them, completely reducing it to pulverized dust.
Vespera's head violently snapped to the side. The sickening sound of bone shattering echoed loudly. Her jaw was entirely unhinged and completely broken in multiple places. Thick, profound blood—a terrifying mixture of divine gold and demonic black—immediately began pouring from her ripped lips and shattered gums, dripping heavily onto her soiled dress.
For a terrifying, agonizing minute, absolute silence reigned in the cavern.
There was no emotion on either of their faces. Rayn stood there, his chest heaving, his hand still raised, glaring at her with cold, murderous intent. Vespera didn't fall. She just stood there, her head tilted at a broken, unnatural angle, her golden eyes staring blankly at the cavern floor.
Over in the corner, sitting on the marble slab, Dawinton watched the entire scene unfold. The Phase 5 Town Leader was completely terrified. He desperately wanted to intervene and calm the absolute madness down, but he knew if he opened his mouth, these two psychotic monsters might turn their combined wrath onto him. He smartly kept his mouth completely shut, shivering in the cold.
Rayn was the one who finally broke the suffocating silence.
"What the actual fuck are you doing, Vespera?!" Rayn shouted, his voice echoing off the ice.
Vespera didn't reply immediately. Slowly, the absolute stoic facade she had maintained for eons completely shattered. Hot, heavy tears began to well up in her golden eyes, slowly tracing down her cheeks and mixing with the gruesome golden-black blood pouring from her shattered jaw.
As she cried, her supreme ancient bloodline activated. Her golden eyes brightened with a profound, heaven-defying light, and the horrific, sickening sound of bones grinding against each other echoed as her broken jaw forcefully and painfully snapped back into place, rapidly healing itself.
But the emotional dam was already broken. Vespera violently dropped to her knees in the dirt. She buried her face in her blood-stained hands and began to wail. She wasn't crying like a supreme, ancient beast; she was crying like an abandoned, terrified child.
Seeing her completely break down, the absolute rage in Rayn's chest suddenly evaporated, replaced by a heavy, cold realization.
He remembered her past. For three hundred million absolute fucking years, she had been sealed in absolute darkness. No one to talk to. No one to touch. Her only driving force was the naive, desperate hope that her beloved Master was going to come back, unseal her and her brothers, and save them.
Rayn slowly walked forward. The demonic aura entirely faded from his body. He dropped to his knees in the freezing dirt right in front of her. He gently reached out, placing his hands on the sides of her face, slowly lifting her head.
Her face was currently a horrific mess. The healing process had stabilized the bone, but her flesh was still mangled, swollen, and painted in thick, disgusting gore. To any normal cultivator, her face was currently so utterly gruesome and ugly that they would instantly vomit.
But Rayn didn't flinch. He just pulled her forward and wrapped his arms tightly around her trembling body, burying her ruined face into his chest.
"I am sorry for hitting you, girl," Rayn whispered, his voice surprisingly gentle, lacking its usual arrogant venom. "I was angry. I woke up suffocating, and I saw you actively burying my body in the dirt. I completely lost my temper."
Vespera violently gripped the back of his tunic, her fingernails digging into his flesh. She sobbed uncontrollably, her voice muffled against his chest.
"You absolute fucker!" she cried out, her voice trembling with leftover terror. "I was so fucking scared! My Master... he also promised me! He said he was going to come back and take me away from this miserable place! He promised we were going to live in a beautiful realm where I could eat whatever I wanted and be completely free! But it was all a damn lie! He never came back! He died trying to protect us!"
She pulled back slightly, looking Rayn in the eyes, her golden irises completely flooded with tears. "When I checked your body on the marble slab, all your physical wounds had miraculously healed... but your heart wasn't beating! I desperately tried to wake you! I poured my qi into you for two entire fucking days, but you didn't show a single sign of improvement! Your soul signature was completely gone! I thought... I thought you had died too! I tried to bury you because I absolutely refused to let anyone else in this miserable world look at your corpse but me!"
Hearing this, Rayn's eyes slightly widened in realization.
Two days? My heart stopped beating for two entire days? Rayn thought, his mind racing back to the Mind Realm. That absolute motherfucker Silas! He forcefully pulled my entire consciousness and life-force into the spiritual sea to talk to me, completely shutting down my physical vessel to conserve Gnosis! That damn naked ghost always pulls these kind of shitty, traumatic pranks!
Rayn couldn't help but let out a soft, exasperated smile. He gently patted Vespera's back.
From the corner of the room, Dawinton, who had been eavesdropping, couldn't contain his curiosity anymore. "Hey, Rayn. Who is this 'Master' she is crying about?"
Rayn's head snapped toward the old man with terrifying speed. His eyes instantly reverted to pools of absolute, demonic crimson.
"You don't need to know a single fucking thing about who he was, Dawinton," Rayn spat, his voice dripping with venomous threat. "So just shut the absolute fuck up. Sit there, cultivate, and in exactly one hour, I am going to explain exactly what we are going to do with your pathetic life."
Dawinton violently swallowed his saliva, immediately nodding and closing his eyes to cultivate.
Exactly one hour later, after Vespera had completely healed her face and cleaned the gore from her dress, Rayn walked over to the marble slab.
"Dawinton. I have a plan," Rayn stated coldly, his arms crossed over his chest.
Dawinton's eyes snapped open, a glimmer of desperate excitement in his gaze. "What is it, Rayn? Tell me."
"The thing is," Rayn began, a sinister smirk creeping onto his face, "my wife is going to use her supreme spatial powers to make your physical body and qi signature completely invisible. When we finally exit this miserable second level of your fucking glacier, we are going to run directly into your son, Victus. You are going to observe him in absolute silence. And you have to be extremely careful, because that bastard Matthew is also out there with him. I have some serious fucking doubts about Matthew; the man reeks of absolute, unadulterated greed for power."
Dawinton frowned, his pride slightly stung. "What are you trying to imply, Rayn? Everyone in this cultivation world has an absolute obsession with something in their lives. If they didn't have desires, why the fuck would humans even be born in the first place? It is completely common for powerful men like us to have a deep obsession over strength and authority."
"Haah!!!"
A cold, incredibly condescending scoff echoed through the room.
Dawinton tilted his head and saw Vespera standing behind Rayn. Her face was completely restored to its flawless, heaven-defying beauty, but her golden eyes were glaring at the old Town Leader with pure, absolute disgust, as if looking at a piece of shit on the bottom of her shoe.
Dawinton immediately raised his hands defensively, sweating under her terrifying gaze. "Okay! Okay! I'm just saying, the strong people like us naturally obsess over power and supreme artifacts!"
Rayn rolled his eyes. "Okay, whatever the fuck helps you sleep at night, old man. I am just warning you to be highly paranoid of everyone around you. You literally already got stabbed in the back by your own flesh-and-blood son just so he could steal the leader position of this pathetic town. Don't be a naive idiot twice."
Dawinton's expression darkened, a profound sadness mixing with newfound ruthlessness. "I understand, Rayn. I am going to give my son one final chance to explain himself. But if he shows even a hint of treason... I am going to completely slaughter him myself."
"Good," Rayn said. "Let's move."
The three of them left the marble chamber, beginning their arduous journey to exit the second level of the glacier.
After traveling through the icy tunnels for some time, Rayn looked over his shoulder. "Hey, old man. I have a serious doubt that I've wanted to ask you for a long time."
"Yes? Ask me, kid," Dawinton replied, hobbling slightly on his newly formed golden prosthetic leg.
"When we first entered your domain, there were thousands of terrifying beasts swarming in front of your private marble room, trying to hunt you down," Rayn noted, his eyes narrowing. "How the fuck did you manage to escape from the deeper levels and survive all those monsters when you were already half-dead from Victus's ambush?"
Dawinton's chest puffed out, a completely genuine, prideful smile breaking across his wrinkled face—the universal smile of a father hearing his child's accomplishments acknowledged.
"Because of my older son," Dawinton stated proudly. "He protected my retreat. He brutally slaughtered every single obstruction that we faced. In fact, the horde of beasts that you fought outside my door wasn't even forty percent of the original swarm. During our arrival and his subsequent exit to fetch help, my older son almost completely wiped out the entire cavern ecosystem by himself. He purposely left that small remnant behind just to act as an outer guard for my room, which you eventually cleaned up."
Rayn completely stopped walking. Vespera also halted, her golden eyes narrowing.
"What the actual fuck are you talking about?" Rayn asked, genuine shock bleeding into his voice. "Are you seriously telling me that your other son is so unbelievably strong that he almost wiped out this entire catastrophic cave ecosystem in a single, casual trip in and out?!"
Dawinton just smiled proudly, nodding his head.
Rayn immediately turned his face away, hiding his expression from the old man. But internally, Rayn's mind was moving at the speed of light, his absolute, demonic ruthlessness calculating the optimal path to supremacy.
So... there is an absolute, terrifying powerhouse hiding in the shadows, actively protecting this pathetic town, Rayn thought, his crimson eyes flashing with malicious delight. If I eventually want to completely destroy this entire country and burn it to the ground, I will inevitably have to face and kill that strongest member. Sparing Dawinton wasn't just a whim; it was the most optimal fucking decision I could have made! I am going to squeeze this old man dry, use his influence to isolate and slaughter that overpowered First Son, and then reduce this entire country to absolute fucking ashes!
Rayn slowly turned back around. A terrifying, bloodthirsty smile stretched across his face. He looked at Dawinton with eyes that promised nothing but pure chaos.
"Dawinton," Rayn whispered, his voice vibrating with dark excitement. "You better be completely ready. The Grand Ceremony that those bastards are trying to stop you from attending is going to be held this very month. And before that ceremony even starts, I am going to personally shake the absolute foundations of those Four Town Members until they violently shit their fucking pants."
The old man nodded grimly. Vespera simply smiled, her golden eyes reflecting Rayn's madness. The three of them looked at each other in the dim light of the icy tunnel. They were no longer just cultivators; they looked like three absolute, apocalyptic monsters, fully prepared to completely butcher anyone who dared to stand in their way.